It is well appreciated that successful mastery of the game of golf is dependent upon clubface attitude at the moment of impact between the clubface and the ball. While many systems have been proposed to determine the positioning of the clubface (face attitude) at various points during the swing of the club, including at the point where impact with the ball will, or should, occur. Such devices and methods have often been awkward or difficult to use, expensive and prone to misinterpretation or error.
Such devices have often used photography, including video photography, and some have employed laser light sources, light reflection and other techniques for attempting to instantaneously or over time provide an indication of clubface attitude.
Among the various proposed devices are those employing reflective light from the club head, either by means of photo detectors such as taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,251,077 or using laser devices such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,452,897. Such devices generally assume the position of the club head at the moment of striking a ball either by requiring the club head to be held in a fixed position relative to the light beam or by assuming that the ball would be struck as the club head passes a fixed point. Other devices utilizing laser light sources, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 6,117,020 require that the laser device to be fixed to the club head. Such club head attachments would be undesired if the club face attitude is to be indicated as a result of a normal swing since such devices would affect the weight and feel of the club. Devices which are restricted to fixed position club heads, attempting to determine the attitude of the club head at the normal address of the ball position would not accurately reflect deviations encountered during the golfer's normal swing.
It would therefore be an advance in the art to provide a club head attitude detecting device which did not require any substantial modification to the club or club head, did not interfere with the users normal swing, was relatively simple to use and inexpensive to operate.